Using Index Cards for PC gear

[Janx]

Just read Monte Cook's DM's Only thread on using item cards.
http://www.montecook.com/dmonly.html

Anyone else tried this?

For myself, in the last campaign I played as a player, we took the initiative and converted our character sheets to gear cards. You don't need a DM to make the conversion.

We used the standard 3x5" white index cards, bought a cheap plastic recipe card box and were set.

It was pretty easy, and the time spend rummaging through the box was nearly equivalent to time a PC would spend rifling through a backpack to find something.

Everytime the GM gave us something, we made a card for it.

The big down-side to it was calculations. We use thegamehub for character sheet tracking. In order to keep up the calculations, we had to maintain our inventory on the cards, and on the site. But that was probably a good idea anyway, since it would ensure we had a record of the gear we had.

I had worked up a standard format with ALL the fields any item would ever need. We then used an ink pen and wrote those fields down on tons of cards. Then as the GM handed us stuff, we simply filled in the blanks in pencil.

We also tried using cheap plastic chips for money (color coded) and popsicle sticks for arrows. It was interesting, but eventually, the money amounts began to matter less and less, so it wasn't worth tracking in coin chips.

As a DM, I also keep an spreadsheet list with ID numbers for everything the players find. Thus as I tell them they find a sword or gem, I give them a number to go with it. When they finally identify it, the spreadsheet tells me what the specs were (value, powers, if any, rather than trying to remember what adventure they found it in). This works well with the cards.

Janx

 

[Davelozzi]

Hmm, while there's some coolness to the idea, overall I think it's more of a hassle than it's worth. Not just because of the time it would take to create them, but having a stack of cards instead of writing it on the sheet, would just make it so easy to lose them. You could always paperclip them to the character sheet but still, paper clips aren't the most efficient fasteners going, and anything more permanent (like staples) would defeat the purpose entirely.

 

[Chronosome]

What Dave said. I'm willing to give it a shot, though.

 

[tensen]

I currently use it in the game we are playing now. Not a requirement by the DM for everything.. but most potions and other expendables come to us on cards with the descriptions.

We all keep binders for our characters, since we have tons of notes. My character keeps a campaign journal.
The way I keep the cards active is that they are the size of business cards, and I have a plastic sheet for holding business cards. So it only takes up 1 page in my binder. It looks really neat. And best of all, they are all visible there looking me in the face, so I don't have to scan through my list of inventory and remind myself of each of the potions.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Sounds intriguing. After using Spellcards and Powercards (from The Other Game Company) for my Sorcerer and Psion, respectively, and liking them, I'm considering that.

 

[dreaded_beast]

While I never used index cards, I did use post-its for my character's magical items and weapons.

I had a "standard list" written on my character sheet, with each of the post-its going into more detail over what the magical item did. If it was a wand, I would keep track of how many charges were left. If it was a weapon, I would write my combat info on there, etc. When I no longer had the item, I would just remove the post-it, such as a post-it for 1-use magic items like potions or scrolls.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

I totally dig this idea for magic items & treasures -- not sure if it's worth it for mundane standard equipment (although, having gotten a ton of mileage in the past out of parties running out of light sources while deep underground, this might be worth re-thinking!)

I first saw this done by Sang Lee in his Phalinor campaign; I loved getting a character folder instead of just a character sheet, with a business-card-holder sheet for our starting magical equipment (game began with 6th lvl characters). Finding cool or mysterious loot was even nicer when it meant being tossed a card that might or might not tell us what the item was or did...

I think Sang might have gotten the idea from PrinceCon, an excellent, long-running, and criminally under-recognized yearly event of the Princeton Gaming Club; can't say if they came up with it independently or took the idea from others themselves.

One thing I can say for sure is that we'll be "borrowing" the magic item/treasure card idea for the Masters and Minions Tournament at Gen Con & Dex Con, and using it along with spell cards & initiative cards! Good ideas deserve to be spread around.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

It sounds like the certificates that were used in Living Greyhawk and Living City and still are used in a lot of the RPGA's Living Campaigns. They work quite well at relatively low levels when characters don't have too many items. In a low-magic game, they can keep working until 8th or 9th level or so. However, by the time characters have enough items that they've got a stack of cards a couple inches thick, it stops being helpful.

For record keeping, it could prove helpful to simply use cards for unidentified and undistributed items--when you find a magic longsword and the fighter picks it up, give him a card. If after the adventure, it's identified as a +1 keen longsword and the fighter decides to keep it, then you recycle the card and simply write the +1 keen longsword down on the character sheet. That way, you keep the benefits of urgency and identifying the distribution of magic items but don't run into the problem of inch thinck stacks of item cards where items regularly get lost in the shuffle.

 

[Thanee]

That's like playing Munchkin.

Well, we have something similar in the D20 Stargate campaign we're playing sometimes, but there it really makes sense with all the equipment packages, which sometimes change according to mission.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Sir Whiskers]

I really like Monte's idea. In fact, I used it starting with my first 3E campaigns. Primarily, it was because I found players never seemed to remember to mark off one-shot items like potions and magic arrows. Later I expanded it to include anything special - masterwork, alchemical, magical.

As Monte points out, however, there are some drawbacks. The most serious for my group was the number of cards characters ended up with even at middle levels. It became unwieldy - a player had to search through too many cards to find the one needed or just see what equipment the character had. While "realistic", it wasn't really fun. Trying to move everything about a character onto cards would seem to make this problem even worse.

I'll have to drop Monte a note to ask him to post a follow-up if his group ever comes up with solutions to the problems he mentioned.